title: Turning body and self inside out: visualized heartbeats alter bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception.
abstract: Prominent theories highlight the importance of bodily perception for self-consciousness, but it is currently not known whether bodily perception is based on interoceptive or exteroceptive signals or on integrated signals from these anatomically distinct systems. In the research reported here, we combined both types of signals by surreptitiously providing participants with visual exteroceptive information about their heartbeat: A real-time video image of a periodically illuminated silhouette outlined participants' (projected, "virtual") bodies and flashed in synchrony with their heartbeats. We investigated whether these "cardio-visual" signals could modulate bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception. We report two main findings. First, synchronous cardio-visual signals increased self-identification with and self-location toward the virtual body, and second, they altered the perception of tactile stimuli applied to participants' backs so that touch was mislocalized toward the virtual body. We argue that the integration of signals from the inside and the outside of the human body is a fundamental neurobiological process underlying self-consciousness.
authors.affiliation: 1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Brain Mind Institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
authors.forename: Jane Elizabeth
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Aspell
authors.forename: Lukas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Heydrich
authors.forename: Guillaume
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Marillier
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lavanchy
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Herbelin
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Blanke
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: cognitive neuroscience; consciousness; human body; virtual reality; vision